Robert W Roeser

Pennsylvania State University | Penn State · Department of Human Development and Family Studies

This cohort study examines the association of a college course designed to strengthen skills for mental health taken in 2018 or 2019 with measures of anxiety, depression, and flourishing during the early months of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in 2020.

Feeling and expressing love in daily life are interconnected and perhaps mutually influential experiences. In this study we examined the reciprocal dynamics of feeling and expressing love and its relation to well-being using an ecological momentary assessment design. Over a four-week period, we asked participants ( N = 52; 67% Female; 80% White) to...

Purpose School teachers show higher levels of internalized distress compared to those in many other professions. In two exploratory studies, we examine the relative and interactive impacts of mindfulness training (MT) and medication use on reductions in depressive and anxious symptoms in teachers over time. Design/Approach/Methods These questions...

Purpose Research of mindfulness-based programming/interventions (MBP) for youth has proliferated in recent years; however, heterogeneity of MBP for youth impede determination of optimal programmatic structure across developmental periods. Design/Approach/Methods Expert MBP scientists and instructors were iteratively surveyed using the Delphi metho...

We introduce a theoretical framework for conceptualizing Psychological Well‐Being (PWB) as a process that unfolds over short and longer time‐scales. We argue that this framework can be especially useful for studying the change mechanisms in PWB within the context of mobile Health (mHealth) interventions. Four lines of research are considered within...

The present study explored prospective links between trait mindfulness and compassion on subsequent coping and compliance with Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines and indirect effects via well‐being and internalized distress during the COVID‐19 pandemic. The study included N = 736 US college students who participated in a three‐wave longit...

Developmental-relational theories of adolescence suggest that receiving compassion from others promotes an internalized sense of relatedness with others, which in turn can support extending compassion toward others. Given that adolescence is marked by an expanding social environment, this may be a particularly salient time for a young person's soci...

Objective: Evaluate COVID-19 pandemic impacts on college student mental health. Participants: Three cohorts of college students (2018 n = 466; 2019 n = 459; 2020, n = 563; N = 1488) from three American universities. Participants were 71.4% female, 67.5% White, and 85.9% first-year students. Methods: Multivariable regression models and bivariat...

Early adults face an important developmental transition that can be accompanied by increased risk for mental health issues and vulnerability to stress and adversity. Increased levels of psychological well-being (PWB) have been found to buffer this risk. Research shows that skills for improving PWB may be learned through PWB interventions; however,...

This special section includes a series of papers that envision the next generation of research on school-based mindfulness programming (SBMP) for students ages 4–18 years. In the first paper, Roeser et al (Mindfulness 13, 2022b) summarize the current evidence of SBMPs, as well as limitations and critiques of this work. Based on their review, they p...

Social–emotional learning (SEL) programs are frequently evaluated using randomized controlled trial (RCT) methodology as a means to assess program impacts. What is often missing in RCT studies is a robust parallel investigation of the multi-level implementation of the program. The field of implementation science bridges the gap between the RCT fram...

Objectives This paper describes the emergence of the scientific study of mindfulness in schools; summarizes findings of experimental research on the impacts of school-based mindfulness programs (SBMPs) on student outcomes in prekindergarten, primary, and secondary school settings (ages 4–18 years); discusses scientific limitations and wider critiqu...

Objectives The implementation of mindfulness-based programming/interventions (MBP) for youth, and corresponding research, has proliferated in recent years. Although preliminary evidence is promising, one pressing concern is that the heterogeneity of MBP for youth makes it difficult to infer the essential constituent program elements that may be dri...

Objective Promoting behavioral strategies to better regulate pain and decrease the use of prescription pain medications immediately after childbirth is an attractive approach to reduce risks for adverse outcomes associated with the maternal mortality crisis. This study aimed to understand women’s beliefs and experiences about pain management to ide...

Objectives Mindfulness programs are increasingly popular on college campuses in the US, yet little is known about college students’ perceptions and beliefs about mindfulness: its origins, how it is learned, its functions, and practitioners. Using methods from Cultural Consensus Theory (CCT), the present study examined whether a cultural consensus o...

Many have called for school‐based student programs that teach skills related to self‐care and caring for others. Here, such a program for peer‐nominated adolescents was developed and piloted virtually at one high school during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Results of a longitudinal, quasi‐experimental evaluation of the program showed high‐quality program...

This Research Brief was developed for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The number of school-based mindfulness programs (SBMPs) for students has been increasing over the last fifteen years. They’ve been developed for students from pre- kindergarten through high school (P–12 settings). While the reach of SBMPs is substantial, their introduction ha...

Objectives Significant concerns have been raised about the “mental health crisis” on college campuses, with attention turning to what colleges can do beyond counseling services to address students’ mental health and well-being. We examined whether primarily first-year (89.1%) undergraduate students (n = 651) who enrolled in the Art and Science of H...

The overall goal of the ISEE Assessment is to pool multi-disciplinary expertise on educational systems and reforms from a range of stakeholders in an open and inclusive manner, and to undertake a scientifically robust and evidence based assessment that can inform education policy-making at all levels and on all scales. Its aim is not to be policy p...

Aim: To examine postpartum opioid prescribing practices. Materials & methods: Obstetricians were interviewed about opioids: choice of opioid, clinical factors considered when prescribing, thoughts/beliefs about prescribing, and typical counseling provided. Inductive thematic analyses were used to identify themes. Results: A total of 38 interviews w...

BACKGROUND Data from the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic raised concerns about pandemic impacts on college student mental health. However, early pandemic phase effects on mental health may be transient and high symptom prevalence rates, while alarming, may reflect a continuation of pre-pandemic trends rather than pandemic effects. OBJECTIVE...

Objectives: Mindfulness programs are increasingly popular, yet little is known about how individuals perceive mindfulness: its origins, how it is learned, its functions, and practitioners. Using methods from Cultural Consensus Theory (CCT), the present study sought to examine whether a cultural consensus on mindfulness exists among early adults in...

Objective: The present study examined whether mindfulness and empathic concern prospectively predict coping and compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic, and tested several theorized mediators of these prospective relationships. Participants: Participants were N = 736 young adults from a three-wave longitudinal study on mindfulness that took place o...

School teachers show higher levels of job stress and symptoms of depression and anxiety compared to those in many other professions. In this paper, we examine the impacts of mindfulness training on reductions in depressive and anxious symptoms accounting for the fact that some of these same teachers were already being using medications for such sym...

Mindfulness training (MT) for teachers has become popular, yet gaps remain in our understanding of the time-course of the impacts of MT on teacher- and classroom-outcomes; the generalizability of MT impacts on elementary versus secondary teachers; and how characteristics of teachers and schools may moderate the impacts of MT. In this randomized-con...

Objective: This study explores whether variability in the implementation of an undergraduate course on human flourishing is differentially associated with student outcomes. Participants: 101 students in the "Art and Science of Human Flourishing" course across three large, public, R1 universities in Fall 2018 participated in the study. Methods:...

We hypothesized that college students who enrolled in the Art and Science of Human Flourishing (ASHF), a novel academic and experiential for-credit course on human flourishing, would demonstrate improved mental health and strengthen skills and behaviors associated with flourishing relative to control students. In a two-wave, multi-site, propensity-...

Objectives The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a manualized mindfulness-based program for adolescents, Learning to Breathe (L2B), on indicators of adolescent social-emotional well-being, mental health, substance use, and executive function. Methods Participants included 251 high school students attending an urban school di...

Objective: To examine obstetric physicians' beliefs about using professional or regulatory guidelines, opioid risk-screening tools, and preferences for recommending nonanalgesic therapies for postpartum pain management. Methods: A qualitative study design was used to conduct semi-structured interviews with obstetric and maternal-fetal medicine p...

Background Mindfulness-based programs are a novel and promising approach for supporting teachers’ occupational health and well-being. Although rationales for mindfulness programs for teachers have been offered, the empirical research base evaluating approaches for educating teachers in mindfulness is still developing. This study reports the finding...

Research shows greater mindfulness is associated with less negative affect and more positive affect. Fewer studies have examined the mediating psychological processes linking mindfulness to these outcomes in adolescents. This three-wave, prospective longitudinal study examines rumination—the tendency to engage in repetitive and negative self-focuse...

Objectives Developing the skills to positively manage social transgressions is of particular salience to those in the teaching profession. The Mindfulness-Based Emotional Balance (MBEB) program is a professional development program for K-12 teachers to build mindfulness and related prosocial skills such as empathy, compassion, and forgiveness. The...

Theoretical perspectives suggest the importance of teachers' emotion regulation skills, occupational health (e.g., burnout), and well-being (e.g., life satisfaction) for students, yet few studies have empirically tested these associations. The current study tested whether teachers' cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression, occupational burnout...

The transitional years of early adulthood, with key tasks of identity and intimacy development, engender both opportunities and risks for well-being. We propose that the conceptualization and measurement of early adults’ well-being can be improved through (a) an integration of ideas from developmental and psychological science on well-being, (b) th...

The Mindfulness-Based Emotional Balance (MBEB) program has evolved under various names (Cultivating-Emotional Balance (CEB), Stress-Management and Relaxation I.raining (SMART)-in-Education Program, M-Power Teacher Program, and the Mindfulness-based Attentional Training (MBAT) for-Spouses Program). Many people, across long periods of time, have cont...

The transitional years of early adulthood engenders both opportunities and risks for well-being. In this paper, we propose that the conceptualization and measurement of early adult’s well-being during early adulthood can be improved through the use of short, daily momentary assessments of well-being, and through an examination of the structure of w...

Received: September 29, 2019 Accepted: September 29, 2019 Published online: October 24, 2019 Issue release date: November 2019

In response to growing interest in mindfulness as a support for educators, the current study sought to create and test a new multidimensional and multi-informant measure of teacher mindfulness in the classroom. To counter some of the limitations of context-general self-reports, we designed two theoretically based classroom-specific measures that ca...

The purpose of this study was to examine how student perceptions of mindful teaching are associated with changes in students’ mindfulness, self-compassion, and compassion for others across a single high school year. We hypothesized two pathways of effect: a direct path whereby when high school students perceive their teachers as demonstrating mindf...

Little is known about whether a widely used mindfulness measure in adults—the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ)—is also reliable and valid in adolescents. The current study evaluated the psychometric properties of a 20-item short-form FFMQ in a sample of 599 high school students ( M age = 16.3 years; 49% female) living in the U.S. Student...

Building upon contemporary models of teaching that suggest that teachers’ own well-being is related to their classroom practice and student outcomes, we examined whether middle school teachers’ mindfulness skills were related to their concurrent occupational health and well-being (job stress, occupational burnout, and depressive and anxiety symptom...

The authors examined the dimensionality and psychometric properties of the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM) among Black South African adolescents (ages = 13–14; 52% female) representing several ethnic groups (Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu) and evaluated the measure for differential item functioning primari...

In this paper, we aim to integrate the current conceptual approaches to stress and coping processes during the college transition with the potential role of mindfulness and compassion skills on students' well‐being and development. First, we provide an overview of the issues and challenges emerging adults are facing during the transition to college...

The authors’ aim in this article is to stimulate thinking and a new generation of scholarship on how compassion develops over the life span and may be cultivated to improve individual and societal health, well-being, and interpersonal relationships. The authors discuss conceptualizations of compassion, overview research on the development of compas...

This study analyzes data from the John Templeton Foundation supported study titled "The Role of Spiritual Development in Growth of Purpose, Generosity, and Psychological Health in Adolescence." Distinction and overlap in reported meanings of success and meanings of spirituality were examined in survey data from an ethnically and religiously diverse...

The effects of randomization to a workplace mindfulness training (WMT) or a waitlist control condition on teachers’ well-being (moods and satisfaction at work and home), quantity of sleep, quality of sleep, and sleepiness during the day were examined in 2 randomized, waitlist controlled trials (RCTs). The combined sample of the 2 RCTs, conducted in...

This handbook addresses the educational uses of mindfulness in schools. It summarizes the state of the science and describes current and emerging applications and challenges throughout the field. It explores mindfulness concepts in scientific, theoretical, and practical terms and examines training opportunities both as an aspect of teachers’ profes...

The purpose of this introductory chapter is to provide a brief overview of the Handbook on Mindfulness in Education, and of the emerging field of science and practice concerned with mindfulness in education for students, teachers, and administrators. We describe the aims of the handbook, provide brief introductions to each of the chapters that comp...

The purpose of this chapter is to challenge researchers interested in mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) in education to look inside the “black box” of these interventions in order to understand how the skills and dispositions of mindfulness are taught and learned. I argue that process studies, focused on the implementation of MBIs in education...

Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) can reduce teachers’ stress. The purpose of this mixed-method study, conducted within the context of a randomized-control trial of an MBI for teachers, was to examine four potential ways by which the MBI reduced teacher stress, including by (1) increasing their efficacy for regulating emotion on the job; (2) i...

In this chapter we review the research on the development of children's motivation and engagement. We organize our review into four major sections: the development of children's achievement motivation; gender, cultural, and ethnic differences in children's motivation; socialization of motivation in the family; and socialization of motivation in sch...

Research on contemplative practices (e.g., mindfulness or compassion training) is growing rapidly in the clinical, health and neuro-sciences, but almost none of this research takes an explicitly developmental life span perspective. At present, we know rather little about the naturalistic development of mindfulness or compassion in children and adol...

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe the emergence of school-based, secular, mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) for educators and students that aim to cultivate mindfulness and its putative benefits for teaching, learning, and well-being. Design/methodology/approachThe paper has four sections: (a) a description of indicators of incre...

Adolescence is a developmental period of risk, as well as a window of opportunity for cultivating positive development and thriving. It is characterized by simultaneous changes in the brain, body, mind, and social domains that offer a platform for building new skills and habits. This chapter discusses the role that secular forms of mindfulness and...

Introduction: The purpose of this paper is to present efficacy and process data from two randomized-control trials (RCTs) and one uncontrolled trial (UCT) of a mindfulness training (MT) for public school teachers aimed at reducing occupational stress and burnout. MT is hypothesized to increase baseline mindfulness, defined as present-centered awar...

There has been a recent call to develop new approaches to promote adolescents’ health and deter the effects of everyday stress by drawing from recent innovations in social-emotional learning (SEL; Durlak et al., 2011). One potentially effective way to promote adolescents’ SEL is through practicing mindfulness (Greenberg & Harris, 2012). Cortisol is...

The articles in this special issue focus on the putative effects of mindfulness training on aspects of attention, emotion, and interpersonal behavior in children, adolescents, and educators. In this commentary, I situate these articles within an emerging, interdisciplinary study of the mind/body system and its prospects for transformation across th...

The effects of randomization to mindfulness training (MT) or to a waitlist-control condition on psychological and physiological indicators of teachers’ occupational stress and burnout were examined in 2 field trials. The sample included 113 elementary and secondary school teachers (89% female) from Canada and the United States. Measures were collec...

This study examined adolescents' perceptions of cultural change and identity development during an age of globalization in India. Analyses of data from 1497 Indian, urban, middle-class 12–15-year-olds (46% girls) revealed that these youth were aware of changes in their daily lives due to globalization and evaluated such changes in a pragmatic light...

Schools hold a central place in the "developmental agenda" set forth for children and adolescents throughout the world. Children's experiences in school have the capacity to promote developmental competencies associated with learning and achievement motivation, emotional functioning, and social relationships, and in some instances can potentiate di...

Parents and teachers of children with special needs face unique social– emotional challenges in carrying out their caregiving roles. Stress associated with these roles impacts parents' and special educators' health and well-being, as well as the quality of their parenting and teaching. No rigorous studies have assessed whether mindfulness training...

Contemplative science is a transdisciplinary project aimed at understanding the effects of various kinds of mental and physical training (such as mindfulness meditation and tai chi) on the body, brain, and mind at different stages of the lifespan. As such, the goals of contemplative science are to create new knowledge regarding human plasticity and...

This article draws on research in neurosci-ence, cognitive science, developmental psychology, and education, as well as scholarship from contemplative traditions concerning the cultivation of positive develop-ment, to highlight a set of mental skills and socioemotion-al dispositions that are central to the aims of education in the 21st century. The...

This article focuses on how mindfulness train-ing (MT) programs for teachers, by cultivating mindful-ness and its application to stress management and the social-emotional demands of teaching, represent emerging forms of teacher professional development (PD) aimed at improving teaching in public schools. MT is hypothesized to promote teachers' "hab...

Parents and teachers of children with special needs face unique social-emotional challenges in carrying out their caregiving roles. Stress associated with these roles impacts parents' and special educators' health and well-being, as well as the quality of their parenting and teaching. No rigorous studies have assessed whether mindfulness training (...

This study analyzes data from the John Templeton Foundation supported study titled "The Role of Spiritual Development in Growth of Purpose, Generosity, and Psychological Health in Adolescence." Distinction and overlap in reported meanings of success and meanings of spirituality were examined in survey data from 244 ethnically and religiously divers...

In this chapter, we provide cross-sectional evidence for a simple framework suggesting that religious/spiritual (R/S) practices confer higher levels of well-being because they train relevant psychological functions. Consistent with this framework, higher reported levels of meditation practice were associated with higher levels of prefrontal cortica...